


The Deamus Deathly Hallows Project

by mostlyanything19 (halfanapple)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Camping, Canon Compliant, Dumbledore's Army, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, I mean this is still kids caught in a war but you know, M/M, Reunions, kind of a lot of crying, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-10-16 07:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17544917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfanapple/pseuds/mostlyanything19
Summary: People were getting up, preparing to leave, and the silence that had hung over the grounds began to disperse into rustles of fabric and low conversations. Seamus didn’t move yet, and neither did Dean, because they both knew that Seamus’ mother was standing in the back rows, waiting to take him home.Rumour was going around that they were thinking of closing the school. Dumbledore had been murdered.Everything was falling apart.Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan during the Deathly Hallows: a collection of oneshots. All of these are as canon-compliant as I can make them and (almost) all are directly expanding on scenes or mentions from the book that inspired them – basically, I’m filling in the gaps with Dean/Seamus because I can.





	1. After the Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought it was time I finally got this little project of mine onto AO3! Most of them have been posted on tumblr before, but I polished them up a bit before bringing them over here.  
> Comments are love, Kudos are love too, and I hope you enjoy!

>   _“Some students were hurried away from Hogwarts by their parents over the next couple of days _–_ the Patil twins were gone before breakfast on the morning following Dumbledore’s death […]. Seamus Finnigan, on the other hand, refused point-blank to accompany his mother home; they had a shouting match in the Entrance Hall which was resolved when she agreed that he could remain behind for the funeral. She had difficulty in finding a bed in Hogsmeade, Seamus told Harry and Ron, for wizards and witches were pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to Dumbledore.”_
> 
> – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, p 590

~~~

People were getting up, preparing to leave, and the silence that had hung over the grounds began to disperse into rustles of fabric and low conversations. Everybody was dressed in black, and it made a weird contrast to the blinding white of the tomb where they had just buried their headmaster.

Seamus didn’t move yet, and neither did Dean, because they both knew that Seamus’ mother was standing in the back rows, waiting to take him home. Right after the funeral, she’d said, and she meant it. Seamus’ suitcase had already been collected and sent home, and Seamus knew there was no sense in arguing any more than he had already done, but he still couldn’t bring himself to move.

Rumour was going around that they were thinking of closing the school. Dumbledore had been murdered. Everything was falling apart.

It was the fear for what might happen next that made Seamus’ mother come trudging up to Hogwarts, demanding to pull her son out of school even before term’s end, refusing to listen to any attempt to change her mind. And it was because of the same fear that Seamus needed desperately to stay, even if only for a few more days.

Hell, they might not ever get to come back.

Dean’s hands were clasped tightly together in his lap. They’d been like that for all of the ceremony, and Seamus knew it was to stop them from shaking.

When they were the last two people left in their row of chairs, Seamus took a deep breath and said, “I think I have to go.”

Dean nodded, and they got to their feet and stood in front of each other and neither one of them moved. Seamus knew his mother would come looking for him now, but she couldn’t do it yet, not with all the people still on their way out through the main aisle. Dean had relocated his hands to his pockets and looked about as miserable as Seamus felt, and god, Seamus couldn’t just go leave him, he _couldn’t._

“I’ll send it after you if you’ve forgotten anything,” said Dean.

Seamus’ attempt at an answer produced only a croaky noise. He cleared his throat and nodded. “‘kay.”

Several seconds of silence went by and Seamus had to go. But before he could do more than attempt to turn away, Dean had pulled his hands out of his pockets and moved them forwards in an an abrupt, jerky, desperate motion, and Seamus instantly swung back around, threw himself across the distance between them and pulled him into a fierce embrace.

Dean wrapped his arms around him, fists bunching into Seamus’s shirt, and both of them were maybe holding on a little bit too tight, but Merlin, God, what did it matter? Everything was fucked.

“Make sure you stay safe,” Seamus murmured. “I want you to make sure of that.”

He had never embraced Dean before. Not like this. There had been the usual, “manly” stuff, the stuff that boys _did_ ; a bit of roughhousing, hard, shoulder-thumping hugs after a won Quidditch game, hugs hello and goodbye at holidays, but never like this. They were touching all over. He could feel Dean’s heart beating through their thin dress shirts, and he didn’t want to let go. Not right now, and if he was honest, preferably never at all.

“Yeah, you too,” said Dean. Seamus closed his eyes and breathed in and told himself to stop being so afraid. It was ridiculous. Dean swallowed, and repeated, more quietly, “you too.”

“You know I will,” Seamus told him, and then his mother was coming up the aisle and he pulled away. “Mam’s here.”

“All right,” said Dean, his hands sliding over Seamus’s shoulders and almost all the way down his arms before he finally let go. And there was that same goddamned fear in his eyes too, Seamus could see it, but all Dean said as Mrs Finnigan came up next to them was, “Have a good summer then.”

“Promise you’ll write!” Seamus called back to him as his mother, after a polite but hasty greeting for Dean, ushered him away down the row of chairs, anxious to catch the next Portkey from the Three Broomsticks. Dean raised a hand in affirmation and goodbye, and wrapped his arms around himself, looking as forlorn as Seamus felt as he started to make his slow way back up to the castle.

And that was the last Seamus saw of him, for the better part of twelve months.

Dean did write. There were thirteen letters in total until the last one arrived. When September rolled around, Seamus, for the first time in his life, returned to Hogwarts alone.

~~~

 

**A hurried letter, summer 1997**

_Seamus,_

_By the time you get this I won’t be at home anymore. You know why. They were here yesterday, and they’re coming back. It’s not safe anymore._  
_I’m going into hiding, I don’t know for how long. No owls anymore from now on, it’s too dangerous._  
~~_In case I don’t see you again_~~ – this part had so fiercely been crossed out that the paper had nearly ripped apart _– I’ll see you once all this is over._  
_Take care of yourself._

_D._


	2. Resistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Harry arrives at Hogwarts in 1998, Seamus is quite obviously acting as something of a second-in-command to Neville (who took sole leadership of the Hogwarts resistance after both Ginny and Luna were forced to leave the school).
> 
> That wasn't how it started.

For the fourth time this week, Seamus watched Neville sneak through the Common Room, towards the portrait hole. Neville was good at avoiding notice, at looking so utterly unremarkable and up to absolutely nothing of interest that the gaze slid right over him. He reached the Fat Lady, inched the portrait open just far enough to slip through, and was gone.

Not five minutes after Neville had vanished outside (it was like watching a theatre play in rehearsal – you could set your watch by it), Ginny extracted herself from the group she had been sitting with, surreptitiously and without attracting any attention, and followed.

For the first time since they’d started doing this, Seamus pushed himself off the windowsill where he had been sitting by himself, trying to pretend that he wasn’t ghastly behind with his homework, which he just couldn’t find the energy to complete. Leaving quill and books where they were, he tucked the small, folded-up piece of parchment he’d been reading ( _re_ -reading) carefully into his shirt pocket and cast a glance around to make sure that nobody was paying him any attention. Then he hurried after them.

 

“I want in.”

A silence fell. He’d found them meeting up in an empty classroom: Ginny, Neville, and Luna Lovegood, who were now all looking at him as if he’d gone crazy. Well – Ginny was, at least. Luna’s gaze spoke more of detached interest, and Neville just looked … wary, somehow, and doubtful. Which hurt, actually. “Seamus, you don’t even know what it is we’re doing.”

“I don’t give a toss,” Seamus insisted. “Whatever you’re doing, I know you’re up to something, and I wanna help. I’m done sitting around.”

“It’s risky,” said Ginny, quite coolly. “I think it would be better if you’d just leave.”

Seamus rounded on her. Ginny squared her jaw at him. “Why? You think I’m not up to that? Listen, I’ve seen you three sneak around. You’re trying to carry on with what we started in fifth year, I know it. Just – look, just take me _with you_.”

“What ’ _we’_ started?” muttered Ginny, and Neville still had that conflicted look on his face that made Seamus feel like some delusional idiot for coming to try and help, and he really couldn’t deal with this right now.

“What?” he snapped at them. “You don’t have to act all secretive, I know about all this stuff just as much as you do.”

“Actually, Seamus – you don’t,” said Neville, sounding apologetic but not meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry, but... we need to be absolutely sure that every one of us is standing behind this one hundred percent, now more than ever, and you’re – well...”

“I think he what he means to say is, you’ve been a little unreliable before,” Luna threw in.

Seamus glared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look,” said Neville, “Don’t take this the wrong way; I know you eventually came around, but, Seamus, you only joined the DA a _day_ before it was all over. And you weren’t with us in the Ministry, you didn’t show up when the Death Eaters broke into the school last year –”

“That was because I didn’t even _see_ there was an alarm! We didn’t have the damn coins on hand. Does that make you somehow entitled to sneak around and pretend you’re some sort of extra special rebel elite or something? I have just as much right to do something about all of this shit as you do!”

“I’d just like to know why you’re think of that now,” said Ginny. “Because you never seemed to be incredibly motivated to help at any point before, so I don’t actually see a reason why you’d want to now, all of a sudden.” She might have looked slightly conflicted about those words if you squinted, but when she spoke again, Ginny’s voice was no less firm. “I’m sorry, Seamus, but you need to understand that we just can’t take any risks.”

“You know what? Screw you!” Seamus said hotly. “Screw you, you think I don’t give a shit? Or that I’m, what, going to rat you out? I know maybe I wasn’t the first in line back when you started this, and I’m sorry about that, okay, it was stupid of me and I should’ve been, but I _wasn’t_ , and so what?! I’m here now, aren't I? And I want in, I _need_ in, I need to _do_ something!”

“Why?” asked Neville. Calm, arms crossed. Immovable.

Seamus snapped.

“Because half the castle is _fucking empty!”_ he roared at him. “I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but there isn’t a single Muggle-born left at this school! Not a single one because they’re after them all, they’re – THEY’RE OUT THERE SOMEWHERE RIGHT NOW TRYING TO HUNT DOWN MY BEST FRIEND AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE HE IS, I HAVEN’T HEARD A SINGLE GODDAMN WORD FROM HIM IN TEN WEEKS, SO _DON’T YOU TELL ME I DON’T KNOW HOW SERIOUS THIS IS!”_

His outburst left a deafening silence behind. Swallowing hard, Seamus lowered his eyes and added, much more quietly, “I just can’t stand feeling so _fucking_ helpless anymore.”

They were still staring at him, now a bit shocked, but he had nothing more to say. He just watched as, stirring again after an awkward moment, Ginny, Neville and Luna began exchanging furtive, silent glances, and something shifted in the air between them; some bulwark of wary tension giving way as querying frowns turned to minute nods and all three of them softened at once.

“Come on.” With a gentle smile, Luna stepped up to Seamus and took a hold of his arm, tugging him with her towards the door. The other two followed without another word, raising no objections. “We can always use a lookout, don’t you think?”


	3. On the run

> _"Didn't you hear about that, Ted?" asked Dirk. "[Ginny Weasley] and a couple of friends got into Snape's office and smashed open the glass case where he was apparently keeping the sword. Snape caught them as they were trying to smuggle it down the staircase." [...]_
> 
> _"What happened to Ginny and the others? The ones who tried to steal it?" asked Dean.  
>  _
> 
> _"Oh, they were punished, and cruelly," said Griphook indifferently._
> 
> _"They're OK, though?" asked Ted quickly._
> 
> _"They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware," said Griphook._
> 
> _"Lucky for them," said Ted. "With Snape's track record, I suppose we should just be glad they're still alive."_
> 
> – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 245

 ~~~

Dirk got another fire going some distance further up the bank where they made camp for the night, and from where you could still hear the river. They didn’t have anything more to eat, having only just finished the fish they caught, but Dean’s stomach was already making itself known again.

 _Dear god, you’re still growing_ , he could almost hear his mother sigh, like she used to do every time she decked the table and he somehow managed to polish more food off his plate than his three sisters combined. _When’s it going to end?_

Could end any day now, actually, but Dean tried his best not to think too much about that. As long as he managed that much, he could pretend all this was more like something of an adventure-camping trip, even though shelter and provisions were sadly lacking, and there was no telling when it was ever going to end. Or how.

He was not complaining. It had been so much better since he’d met Ted six days ago; such a relief not to be alone in all this anymore, to be allowed to catch a bit of sleep at night, knowing somebody was keeping watch.

The others were talking; Ted, Dirk, and the goblins, but Dean didn’t feel like participating. Ted had assured him that he knew Dirk well, and they all seemed trustworthy enough, but nevertheless it always took Dean a little while to get comfortable with strangers, and the past weeks had done nothing to improve that. Quite the contrary. And that aside... he felt unsettled, deeply, and in a way that he hadn't felt in all the time he had been on the run like this; felt rudely torn out of the routine of immediate survival and flung back into a wider, more universal awareness that he knew did you no favours.

He settled down a little aside from the others and stared into the fire as the sky got dark overhead, his fingers restlessly peeling the bark off a stick he’d picked up. He tried to listen to the others’ conversation but his thoughts kept drifting off, out over the endless trees and away, north and north, until Dirk let out a sudden bark of laughter and Dean snapped back to reality and realized he’d lost them completely.

Eventually, Ted came over and sat down beside him with a suppressed groan. His joints weren’t dealing too well with the damp, he’d told Dean, shortly after they met.

“All right, son?” he asked conversationally. Ted kept calling him ‘son’ like they’d somehow known each other for ages, and Dean couldn’t quite decide how he felt about that. He kept telling himself that he shouldn’t get too close to these people, that they were every one of them in real, mortal danger every day, but as much as he tried – he had never experienced this kind of reality before. In his own head all his warnings and worries sounded like the stuff you started thinking after watching too many over-the-top spy movies. _Everybody could be an enemy. Actual people with the actual permission to arrest you are after you, and they won’t hesitate to kill you should you resist._ It sounded utterly mad. Even more so when you considered what they justified it with.

Ted was glancing at him, waiting for an answer, but he was never impatient or pushing. Dean liked that about him. He shrugged. “Just thinking.”

“About your friends at Hogwarts, huh?” said Ted. Dean looked up in surprise, but Ted only smiled. “Hey, that’s not a big leap to make, you know.”

Staring down at his half-peeled twig, Dean found he didn’t really know how to answer that. Ted was wrong: He was trying desperately _not_ to think about his friends at Hogwarts. It was just not working.

“No shame in being worried,” said Ted, “hell, I do nothing but lately, even though _I’m_ supposed to be the one in danger.” With a dry chuckle he shifted his weight, leaning back against a tree stump. “So I take it you know these kids? Ginny Weasley and the others?”

Dean nodded. “Ginny was my girlfriend. Last year. And the others…” he hesitated, not sure how much to confide in this man, Ted Tonks, with his genial and unassuming attitude, whom he liked a great deal but had really only known for a matter of days. But then again, what did it matter at this point? Sinking or not, they were all sitting in this boat together.

“We had a – sort of secret resistance group a couple years back, a whole bunch of us. Taught each other Defence against Dark Arts, when the school wouldn’t, you know,” Dean confessed, carrying on when Ted looked surprised, and interested, but showed no trace of outrage. “And we were good. Really good. But this, what they're doing now … this is different, isn’t it? It’s not just risking being expelled or – or detention anymore, it’s serious. You said it yourself, with Snape as Headmaster they’re lucky they’re still _alive._ And they’re all people I know, they’re my friends, they…" He blinked into the trees, swallowing, "well I was _stupid_ , wasn’t I, because I just went off and thought they would be safe, that as long as they’re not Muggle-born that they'd be – And now –” he shrugged his shoulders helplessly, hating the tremor in his voice. “I just want to know if they’re okay but there’s no way to find out, is there? I don’t even know _who_ they caught, who else aside from Ginny; it could be any one of them, it could be Neville, or – Luna Lovegood, or, or my best friend Seamus –”  That was when his voice broke, and he pressed his mouth to the back of his hand, looking away from Ted, swallowing it down, down, ragged edges and all. This was precisely why he had been trying not to think about any of this. _Shit._

Ted didn’t say anything, but after a few moments he put a broad hand on Dean’s shoulder, a strangely reassuring weight.

“I know, son,” he sighted, “I know. But you heard Griphook. They’re all right, for now at least. And in our current situation, that’s about all we can ask for.”

 ~

Ted returned to the campfire a little while later, with one last gentle squeeze of Dean’s shoulder, and continued to speak in low voices with Dirk until long after both Goblins had fallen asleep, snoring in soft, chirpy breaths. Dean lay awake, blinking up into the dim canopy overhead, twisting and tearing at his stick until there was nothing left but splinters.


	4. Potterwatch

> _“It is with great regret that we inform our listeners of the murders of Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell. A goblin by the name of Gornuk was also killed. It is believed that Muggle-born Dean Thomas and a second goblin, both believed to have been travelling with Tonks, Cresswell and Gornuk, may have escaped. If Dean is listening, or if anyone has any knowledge of his whereabouts, his parents and sisters are desperate for news.”_  
>  – _Potterwatch_ , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 356

~~~

Lee Jordan continued speaking after that, reporting a couple more deaths, Muggles and wizards alike. Then he requested a minute of silence, in memory of the fallen. He wouldn’t have needed to. The room was already as silent as a tomb.

Neville swallowed, and didn’t look at Seamus. Nobody looked at Seamus.

Listening to _Potterwatch_ always felt like a roller-coaster ride in and of itself. All those familiar voices, that of Lee Jordan first and foremost, whom they had all still known as the commentator in every one of their early Quidditch games here at Hogwarts.  But instead of house scores, the death toll. Every time this equal mix of hope and dread that there might be a familiar name coming from the speakers one day. Hope, because it was their only way of knowing what was happening to all the people out there who were fighting this war, or had become fugitives. Dread, because the word that did reach them was often a final one.

And now Dean.  

 _But he’s not dead_ , Neville reminded himself. _They didn’t say he was dead._ Still, hearing Dean’s name mentioned in direct succession to the murders of these other people had been enough to momentarily shake him to the core, and the aftershocks of that feeling were not to get rid of by rational thinking, no matter how hard he tried. The radio continued on with its scheduled program, but Neville found he couldn’t keep track of what was being said. His thoughts kept coming back to his former dormmate, out there somewhere, on the run. _Hopefully. Hopefully still on the run._

Their little gathering dispersed shortly after, everyone drifting back to their own dormitories one by one. Ginny sent a concerned look his way before slipping out the door; then he and Seamus were the only ones left. Two people in a five-bed room. It had been like this all year, of course, after neither Harry, Ron nor Dean had returned for their final year at Hogwarts, but Neville thought he would never get used to how looming and empty the room felt. How silent it got at night.

He diligently stashed the radio away under his mattress, spent too much time straightening his covers again, and finally took heart and looked up. Seamus was pale as a sheet. With his hands clasped around a lumped-up bunch of the duvet in front of him and the muscles in his jaw visibly clenched he stared at the far wall.

“Seamus?” Neville said, hesitant, but received no reaction. “Do you – do you want me to leave you alone for a while?”

Seamus blinked, his throat working, but still didn’t respond. Neville felt horrible. This whole thing was a nightmare, and sometimes, despite being the core of the resistance here, all they could do was sit around and feel helpless and inadequate in the face of other people’s suffering.

There had been times in their past when Neville had felt deeply jealous about the ease and the depth of the two friendships that had developed so early on between the people he shared a dormitory with, always leaving him the odd one out. Tonight though, looking at Seamus, the old bitterness didn’t return. Instead he felt only tired, and at a loss. There must be words to say and things to do in a situation like this, but if there were, Neville realized, he wouldn’t know them. He had never been this close to somebody. 

God, the room felt so _empty._

”Look, you heard what Lee said, didn’t you? He probably escaped,” Neville attempted, trying to sound confident. As if he didn’t know, as if _Seamus_ didn’t know what happened to ninety percent of the fugitives sooner or later. What was probably already happening to Dean. _“May have escaped”_ meant nothing; it meant they didn’t find his body where they found the other ones.

Seamus opened his mouth. “I heard it,” he said in a shaky voice. “I just don’t know – I don’t – "

Then he burst into tears.

Neville quietly stepped out onto the landing and pulled the door shut behind him with a hollow _click._

  
  
When he returned later, after the fires had burned down in the common room, Seamus was still sobbing into his pillow. Wordlessly, Neville slipped into bed, closed the curtains, and then stared at the dark canopy overhead while distorted images of dark figures took refuge in his mind, and Seamus’ muffled crying was replaced by mad laughter, barks of _“Crucio!”_ and shrieks of agony as he sank slowly down into his old, worn, and all too familiar nightmares.


	5. Shell Cottage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This particular chapter is based less of a direct quote from the book and more on something that's, from my point of view, very visibly _lacking_ from it. You will notice, reading the relevant passages, that during the part where the Trio, Griphook, and Dean are all caught in the forest, soundly beaten up, dragged to Malfoy Manor and lengthily interrogated, then meet Luna and Ollivander, fight their way out and eventually end up at Bill and Fleur's, Dean Thomas is... all but completely silent. In fact, he speaks only twice - the first time when Harry, Ron and Hermione all realize it's him and he recognizes them, and then pages and pages later one word, "thanks", as Luna gets them loose from their bindings in the Manor dungeon. After this ordeal they all spend a significant amount of time at Shell Cottage together, and again for most of this time we get so little from Dean, he might as well not be there at all. 
> 
> Originally, I was a little miffed at Rowling for this. Then I said "screw it" and just went with where that left me.

> _“Right. Dobby, I want you to take Luna, Dean and Mr Ollivander and take them – take them to –”_  
>  _“Bill and Fleur’s,” said Ron. “Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!”_  
>    
>  – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p 379

~~~

**_Shell Cottage, 1998, some days later_ **

Luna was standing outside when he approached her, her long hair blowing behind her in the wind that was coming strong from the sea. He debated with himself for a moment if he should disturb her (with Luna, one never knew what she might be occupied with), but before he could change his mind and go back inside, she spoke without turning around.

“Hello, Dean.”

So he stepped closer and stood beside her, looking out over the stormy grey surface of the water. He’d come out here to talk, but somehow that wasn’t working out so well lately. It was like he’d lost the capability to translate his thoughts into words; anytime he tried to approach a subject that went beyond the mundane everyday topics, beyond the basic ‘yes’ and 'no’ and 'please’ and 'thank you’s, he found himself, for all intents and purposes, stuck.

Luna never lost her dreamy expression, she didn’t even seem to wonder why he was here. “Sometimes, I find it’s easiest if you just listen for a while,” she said, as if she’d read his thoughts.

“What’re you listening to?” Dean asked. He was expecting Luna to come up with some peculiar creature or other, but what she said was simply: “The sea.”

Huh.

In Shell Cottage you could hear the sea in every room, day and night. After the first few days, Dean had stopped paying any conscious attention to it, but now he looked back out over the waves and tried hearing whatever it was that held Luna so captivated, and made her look so … at peace. How did she do that? He couldn’t understand how she went around all day long helping around the house and humming as she did so, how she seemed so unconcerned with what had happened to her. Almost as if nothing had happened at all.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Somewhere inside he was aware that perhaps it wasn’t _her_ he should be asking that question right at the moment.

Luna turned her large blue eyes on him, the effect only increased with the weight she’d lost. But she was smiling, a little sad maybe, but steady. “Oh, don’t worry about me, really. After all, none of this is over, is it?”

Maybe he didn’t quite catch her meaning, but that wasn’t exactly a statement that Dean would call reassuring. He shrugged.

But Luna kept scrutinizing his face. “Are you all right, Dean?”

Well, that was the million-dollar-question, wasn’t it? That was the question he’d been shirking around, looking the other way whenever the growing suspicion rose up within him that maybe he really, really wasn’t.

Every time he closed his eyes, there was blood. Every time the house got quiet, there were screams in his ears. Pleas. Screeches. The sudden, gurgling sound that a goblin made when his throat was cut. And Ted –

Dean swallowed heavily and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah,” he muttered, not looking at Luna, “I’m okay.” _Just don’t think about it._ “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why _are_ you here?”

“I wanted to ask you … how were things at Hogwarts? When you left?” He could see Luna’s mouth tightening for a moment, but couldn’t tell if it was because she was thinking of the day they'd dragged her off the train, or something else. Either way, she didn’t linger on it.

“We called the DA back to life,” she told him instead. “Neville, Ginny and me, we built up a resistance. Before I had to leave, there were about twenty who had joined us, and we were doing our best to stand up to Snape and to the Carrows. I just hope Neville will be all right, now that Ginny is gone, too,” she trailed off, looking thoughtful. “We were the leaders, you know. And most of the time it was Neville they would torture, he was always trying to get the others out of it if he could …”

 _“Torture?”_  Dean interrupted her, with a sickening, wrenching sensation in his guts. He hadn’t wanted to believe this. “They were – _what?”_

“Oh, yes.” Luna nodded. “They would use the Cruciatus Curse on anyone they caught doing anything they didn’t like. Sometimes they’d beat us. Terry got locked up in the dungeons for three days once, after he tried to keep them from punishing a second-year girl from Ravenclaw, but he said that wasn’t so bad.”

Luna’s voice sounded so matter-of-fact, she could just as well have been reading the weather report on the news channel. Dean felt nauseous.

“But – they can’t do that, they’re not _allowed_ to –”

“They called it the new regime,” Luna shrugged. “Anybody who went against it was allowed to be punished. Though they didn’t know about most of the others who joined along the way, we were quite good at keeping it secret.”

“Who else … ?” Dean asked, hating how he couldn’t seem to string a proper sentence together; there were too many things he needed to know but they all got stuck in his throat. _Cruciatus Curse. Oh Merlin. Oh God._

“Most of the old crowd came back. A few new ones from the other houses, too, though mostly Gryffindors. I’m really glad we started it up again. At first we almost would have done it all alone; just Neville, Ginny and me. We didn’t want to get anyone else involved. If it hadn’t been for Seamus –”

Dean’s head snapped up at the name and he stared at Luna, his heart beating somewhere in his throat. Luna merely shifted towards him a little, smiling gently.

“Oh yes, he was great,” she said affirmatively. “He convinced us to make it all official again. I never used to like him all that much, Seamus,” she mused, looking at Dean as though expecting him to nod in agreement or something, “but I found him much nicer this year. And he just came up to us one evening, after weeks of staring at that piece of parchment that he carries everywhere all night, and he demanded that we let him come, too. And then a few days later he brought Lavender and Parvati, and that’s how it all started. Actually, it’s probably him who’ll step up next to Neville now that me and Ginny are gone. He’s been really committed to the DA since he came back.”

The wind was picking up force as the sun began to sink towards the horizon, and Dean shivered. He felt sick. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to make of Luna talking about _Crucios_ and beatings and dungeons, and – _Don’t think about it. Don’t._ He’d gotten through all these months on the run by simply not letting his mind dwell on anything but his most immediate concerns, but right now he just wanted – he wished –

“You miss him, don’t you?” said Luna, and Dean bit his lip until it started bleeding, and if he could exchange Luna right now for someone who wasn’t as creepily perceptive, then he could maybe get the shaking in his hands back under control because he knew – he _knew_ how it sounded, someone being tortured by the Cruciatus Curse, he’d heard it, he still heard it every night in his sleep and it couldn’t happen to Seamus, _please, please, it couldn’t._

He didn’t notice Luna had turned away from him, back towards the house, until she spoke again.

“Don’t worry. I think we might see them all again soon enough."

Dean wanted to reach out and stop her, wanted to ask where she got this certainty in her voice from, why she wasn’t feeling just as lost and alone and helpless as he did, but his hands were clenched around his own upper arms too tightly, and when he opened his mouth, not a word would come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People react to trauma in vastly different ways. Luna, like every one of them, has got her own weight to carry; she's just not doing it in a way that Dean is able to recognize right now.


	6. The Room of Requirement

> _The longer Harry looked at Neville, the worse he appeared: one of his eyes was swollen, yellow and purple, there were gouge marks on his face, and his general air of unkemptness suggested that he had been living rough. [...]_
> 
> _“Neville, what’s happened to you?”_
> 
> _“What? This?” Neville dismissed his injuries with a shake of the head. “This is nothing. Seamus is worse. You’ll see."_
> 
> – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 460
> 
> _“Look,” Harry began, without knowing what he was going to say, but it did not matter: the tunnel door had just opened behind him._
> 
> _“We got your message, Neville! Hello you three, I thought you must be here!”_
> 
> _It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best friend._
> 
> – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 468

~~~

Seamus barrelled into Dean so hard he almost knocked them both over. As it was, they stumbled backwards together and bumped into someone else, who made a disgruntled noise as Dean’s elbow collided with their ribcage, but Seamus couldn’t even bring himself to check who that might have been. 

 _Dean was alive._ He was alive and he was _here,_ standing in front of Seamus healthy and solid and whole, even if the arms that wrapped around him so tightly and almost lifted him off his feet seemed thinner than they used to be, even if he could feel Dean’s ribs under his hands, more prominently than he’d have liked. But, fuck, that was nothing – that wasn’t death, that was no horrible gaping wound, that was not what had been going on in Seamus’ nightmares, that was _nothing._

“Seamus!” Dean exclaimed, as if he hadn’t known that Seamus would be here just as Seamus had known that Dean would be coming, because Luna had been in contact, and she had called ahead.

But it had been a _year;_ nearly twelve whole horrible months in which Seamus hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard from him, had even spent weeks believing that he never would get the chance again, and so Seamus hugged him just that much tighter before he let go of Dean, just a little, just far enough to sink back on his heels and look him in the face.

“Hey there,” he said, and he was well aware that he was grinning like a loon, so hard that it hurt, and also of the sudden moisture in his eyes that threatened to overflow if he blinked too hard. But oh, Merlin, he didn’t care. Not now.

He was unprepared to see the answering, blinding smile vanish from Dean’s face the second he laid eyes on Seamus properly, replaced instead by an expression of absolute horror that made Seamus’ heart stutter in his chest.

“Oh – Jesus,” Dean gasped, “what happened to–”  

He faltered, raised his hand up to Seamus’ face but didn't touch him; fingertips hovering, apprehensive, just shy of Seamus' skin.

Oh. Right.

“The Carrows,” explained Seamus, with the automatic matter-of-fact shrug they had all come to employ around these matters. To be honest, he’d almost forgotten about the state of his face. The wounds had nearly all closed after being left undisturbed, no new ones added since he’d holed up in the Room of Requirement for good about two weeks ago, and they hardly hurt anymore. Besides, everyone was varying degrees of banged up around here. Nobody commented on it anymore.

“Hey, it's, it’s not as bad as it looks,” he tried to reassure Dean, because it _wasn’t_ , even though Seamus was well aware of the picture he currently presented in the mirror. “Really, it's not.” But Dean didn’t look reassured at all. His eyes were very dark and held an expression Seamus didn’t know what to make of – something urgent, and fearful, but at the same time alarmingly detached, as if a part of him had just gone somewhere very far away. Dean’s hand was still hovering in the air as if frozen in place – frozen, except for the visible tremor that ran through Dean’s entire arm right up to his fingertips on his next shuddering exhale.

And this – Seamus couldn't be sure what this was or where it came from but he knew he couldn’t stand it, knew he wasn’t going to break if Dean touched him because it was really _not so bad_ , it _wasn’t_ , if Dean would only stop looking at him like it was. So he let go of Dean’s shoulders, reached up and caught his hand, tugging it gently all the way in until it was pressed very large and very warm against Seamus’ cheek and jaw.

“Just a bit scratched up,” he said, smiling up at him again. Some of the bruises on Seamus' face began to throb dully from the pressure, but he stubbornly ignored them, watching intently as that awful, haunted look of distress began to slowly retreat from Dean's eyes, _thank fucking God_ , at least for now.

Dean held his gaze for a long moment. He took a deep breath, and nodded slowly, and then, finally, he smiled back, and his thumb brushed over Seamus’ cheekbone in a gesture that suddenly felt entirely too intimate for where they were standing.

The room was still filling up with new arrivals and was getting crowded. Lee Jordan and three more of the Weasleys had just stumbled in through the tunnel to Aberforth’s pub, and even though nobody was paying him and Dean any particular attention and crowding around a beleaguered-looking Harry instead, inevitably the world came crashing back in. They were in a room full of people. They were at war. Today, they were going to fight.

“So what’s the plan, Harry?” one of the Weasley twins wanted to know while Dean, who seemed to share this sudden sense of exposure, let his hand slide from Seamus’ cheek down to his neck, then his shoulder; back to familiar territory, back to what they knew, for now.

“There is no plan,” protested Harry, and then sort of turned on Neville for calling them all together in the first place, which was obviously rubbish: what else were they supposed to do but fight? It had to end _some_ time, one way or another, and did Harry come here to take a scenic tour or what?

Dean’s eyebrows had drawn together, confused, as he peered at Harry over the heads of Neville and Lavender.

“We’re fighting, aren’t we?” he said and held out one of the fake Galleons that had been the limited source of communication between them these last few weeks. “The message said that Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I’ll have to get a wand, though –”

That snapped Seamus’ attention back around right quick.

“You haven’t got a _wand_ _–?”_ he started, but Dean shrugged brusquely as if that didn’t matter and balled his fingers around the golden coin into a fist.

“I’ll punch them in the meantime, they never expect that –”

“You came here, to fight, _without a_ _wand?”_

Harry, Ron and Hermione had turned away from the crowd, discussing something amongst themselves in hushed voices, and Seamus really didn’t want to make a scene here or start yelling but – No. Hell no. They’d all been excited, even eager to finally, _finally_ go out and make a stand after all these months of hiding, after all that had been done to them. But it was one thing to go armed and ready, and another thing entirely to stumble unprotected into open fire.

“Have you lost your mind?!” he hissed, grabbing Dean’s raised fist and pushing it down. “Bloody hell, Dean, they’ll rip you to pieces!”

“It’s not as if I have a choice!” Dean retorted hotly. “It’s _gone_. They broke my wand two months ago, right after they w–– right after they caught me,” he added, and swallowed something else down, something that made the voice of Lee Jordan echo again in Seamus’ head, distorted through the bad reception of a magical radio: _“We inform our listeners of the murders of Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell. A goblin by the name of Gornuk was also killed…”_ The words were seared into his mind ever since that one godawful night in March. Seamus suddenly wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what traces that very same night must have left on Dean.

He opened his mouth, didn’t even know what he wanted to say, what he _could_ say. There was a trace of that terrible look again in Dean’s eyes, the one from before, mingled with what he thought was fear, but even more determination.

“I won’t stay back from this, Seamus, I don’t care what you say. Not if everyone’s going, not if _you’re_ going,” Dean said. “I’ll get a wand from somewhere.”

He wasn’t making a fist anymore, and so Seamus’ fingers, which had before been firmly wrapped around said fist, were now just sort of holding onto Dean’s hand with a loose grip. For a self-conscious moment, Seamus wondered if he was supposed to pull them away. But before he could, Dean shifted, turned his wrist and wrapped his fingers around Seamus’ in return, properly and purposefully, squeezing a little and smiling like it was all gonna be just fine, and... _fuck_ , Seamus had missed him so much it hurt. To hell with what this looked like, what it was _supposed_ to look like. They might all be dead tomorrow, but today, they might just make do, together, like this.

He took a deep breath.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, just as Harry, somewhere over there, seemed to come to a decision. “’Course you will, we’ll just go and get you one. Only don’t do anything stupid in the meantime.”

“Like punching a Death Eater? I can’t guarantee that,” Dean said and his tone told Seamus he was teasing now, not seriously thinking about doing that anymore, which was probably good. It was also probably good that this was the moment when Harry straightened up and called the room to silence so Seamus didn’t have the time to reply, because there was a high chance he would have said something so utterly cheesy and embarrassing that he would never have been able to live it down; something like, _“I guess I’ll just have to keep hold of this hand here, then, to make sure,”_ perhaps.

So he just grinned, pushed away all the stubborn, residual anxiety as well as he was able, and squeezed Dean’s hand a little tighter in his own as they turned towards their determined leader to find out what the plan was going to be.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the spoken dialogue from "So what's the plan, Harry?" to Seamus going "You haven't got a _wand_ –?" is quoted directly from the Deathly Hallows.
> 
> And there is one more quote, one that sort of goes with the end of this chapter, and while we're all here, I don't want to keep it from you. In fact, I'm a little sad that I haven't been able to use it as a chapter starter, because it is actually the reason this entire project exists in the first place, even if it is not readily apparent as having anything to do with Deamus at all. So everyone in the Room of Requirement is leaving to fight, and then the text goes as follows:
> 
>   _[...] the mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore’s Army and Harry’s old Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn, heading up into the main castle._
> 
>   _"Come on, Luna," Dean called as he passed, holding out his free hand; she took it and followed him back up the stairs._ (p. 486)
> 
> This is the one that got me so hooked on the idea of writing things in between the lines! Because Dean doesn’t just hold out his hand to Luna, who he has clearly bonded with during their time at Shell Cottage - no, he holds out his **free** hand. Curious to have that so specifically described, since it clearly implies that Dean's other hand is otherwise occupied. And you would normally assume that he’s carrying his wand of course, like all the others are, except that Rowling _explicitly_ stated just like two pages earlier that he **doesn’t have one.** So what the heck is he doing with that hand?
> 
> The only logical conclusion, to me? Seamus Finnigan, currently clinging like a limpet after they’ve just been reunited. It only makes sense.


	7. Epilogue

Dean came awake when the last of the embers fell into the ashes with a soft _thud_. His head had gradually drooped down in his sleep and now rested half on the back of the sofa, half on Seamus' shoulder.

There was nobody else around.

He jerked upright – "Where's Neville?" – but Seamus put a hand on his knee and shook his head.

"Went out. Dunno where to," he mumbled.

Relaxing a little, Dean looked around. The fire was almost extiguished, and velvety darkness pressed against the window panes, all of it so familiar it felt foreign, so whole it felt unreal. Gryffindor Common Room. The sofas and armchairs sat empty; everyone gone to bed, gone home, just _gone_ , but they had sat up with Neville and Luna, and then just with Neville, and then Dean must have fallen asleep. "How late is it?"

A shrug was his only answer. When Dean glanced up, he was startled to see that Seamus' cheeks were wet, as if he had been silently crying for a while.

"Seamus?" he asked carefully. Suddenly his voice didn't seem to work properly. "You alright?"

Seamus swiped at his nose and snorted something that was maybe a laugh and maybe a sob.

"No," he said and squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers harder into Dean's kneecap. "I mean – yes, I am, I am, it's just –" Seamus took a deep, shuddering breath. There was still blood on his lower lip. He'd cut it in the battle. "Man, we _did_ it!" he exclaimed with startling intensity. His eyes were a little wild. "I mean, it's – this is really it, isn't it, this is _it,_ it's _over_. The war, everything, just like that, and this – this entire goddamn year, watching them drag people out of school, having to hide from you own teachers, never having any chance of finding out what's really going on out there, never knowing if ... but we're – we're here, and we made it. Shit, we _made_ it and it's _over._ And now look at me sitting here crying like a fuckin' baby, sorry about that, sorry, I just ... I ..." His voice cracked and he stopped talking, pressed his arm over his eyes and his back started shaking, and Dean was suddenly, immensely thankful that Neville had gone to wherever he went that was not here.

He put his arm around Seamus' shoulders and shook him a little, wrapped his other hand around Seamus' fingers where they were still clenched on his knee. "Yeah, I know," he whispered, because he _did_. "I know, I know, it's okay."

"Do you have any idea," Seamus gritted out, voice choked, "how much I missed you? I fuckin' missed you, I thought you were dead, goddammit. I thought you were _dead._ "

He tugged his hand free of Dean's grasp and abruptly threw both of his arms around Dean's neck, and the next thing he knew they were full-out hugging again for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

Only this time there was no room full of people watching and Death Eaters waiting outside and no time, no place, no anything. This time there was just the fire, almost burned down, and Seamus who was sobbing "fuck, fuck" into his neck, so Dean wrapped his arms as tightly around him as he could and pulled him even closer, buried his face in the fabric of Seamus' jumper and bit down on his very own memories of snatchers and killing curses and dungeons. Of Dirk's shattered skull. Gornuk's screeching.

Of the entirety of tonight.

"It's all right," Dean said, to himself or to Seamus, he didn't know, "it's over, it's all over, we did it, shh, I know," and he kept babbling, kept repeating it because he couldn't seem to stop. There was something building up in his chest that felt like a tidal wave, and he couldn't let it come out, not right now, he _couldn't_. He clawed his fingers into Seamus' shirt and pressed his face into the side of Seamus' neck and tried to be all right.

They stayed like that for a long time. They stayed until Dean's half-comforting, half-frantic string of nonsense words dried up, and Seamus' breath had stopped hitching, and then for a good while longer. After everything, letting go felt like far too much to ask.

When Seamus finally pulled back, it was to wipe at his face with his sleeve. He looked red-eyed and exhausted.

"Sorry," he mumbled, a little embarrassed, but Dean just shook his head. He reached up and carefully brushed away a stray tear that Seamus had missed, between the cuts and the bruises, and Seamus' eyes fluttered closed on a shaky exhale.

The silence was almost tranquil now in the weightlessness of exhaustion. They sat and just looked at each other, battered and weary as they were, until Seamus leaned in, very slowly, very cautiously, but with undeniable purpose, and touched his lips to the corner of Dean's mouth.

The kiss was a firm, warm little pressure, over in a moment. But it felt like more than that. It reverberated and expanded, somewhere inside of him, drew ripples around itself like a pebble dropped into a stream.

Seamus pulled back, just enough to look up at him with an anxious little pinch between his brows, bite his lip and ask, "Yeah?", as if he honestly wasn't sure what Dean was going to say, as if that could honestly ever be a question.

Dean looked at Seamus and exhaled, a breathy little almost-laugh. _"Yeah,"_ he said, and pulled him in again, and closed the distance properly.

This should feel strange, some part of him whispered, but he paid it no mind because it _didn't_. Nothing had ever felt less strange in his life. Seamus made a noise into his mouth that sounded like laughter and tasted like home and _felt._..

It felt, in some strange way, like a never-given promise finally fulfilled. And their second kiss, longer this time and lingering and as gentle as he could make it through the pull of his beating heart, like a _very_ long time coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are more parts that belong to this 'verse, set before the Deathly Hallows, all equally derived from passages of the books themselves. I hope to get these finished up and posted before too long. In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading, and if you want to, do drop a comment and let me know what you think!
> 
> Oh, and also: I know this isn't really the done thing but I don't see why it shouldn't be, especially since tumblr killed the ability to search for any posts with links, so that links to fics pretty much don't make it into their respective fandom tags anymore. If you liked this fic and want to give it a little boost on tumblr, [here's the post :)](https://mostlyanything19.tumblr.com/post/185480006348)


End file.
